It was a journey that he had made so often that he knew every bump in the road, every gateway past which he drove, and, extraordinarily, the people whom he would often see standing at much the same place as they always stood. People like their places, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni reflected. There was that rather ragged man who used to walk about the end of Maratadiba Road, looking as if he had lost something. He was the father, he believed, of the maid who worked in one of the houses there and she had given him the spare room in her quarters. That was the right thing for a daughter to do, of course, but if Mr J.L.B. Matekoni were that man, or the daughter for that matter, he would think that the best place for a father who was slightly confused would be back in the village, or even out at the lands or at a cattle post. In the village he would be able to stand in one spot and watch everything happen without his moving about. He could watch cattle, which was very important for older people, and a good hobby for older men. There was a great deal to be learned just by watching cattle and noting their different colours. That would have kept that man busy.

And then, just round the corner, on Boteli Road, on Fridays and Saturdays one might see a very interesting car parked under the shade of a thorn tree. The car belonged to the brother of a man who lived in one of the houses on Boteli Road. He was a butcher from Lobatse, who came up to Gaborone for the week-ends, which started, for him, on Friday morning. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had seen his butchery store down in Lobatse. It was large and modern, with a picture of a cow painted on the side. In addition, this man owned a plastering business, and so Mr J.L.B. Matekoni imagined that he was a fairly wealthy man, at least by the standards of Lobatse, if not the standards of Gaborone. But it was not his prosperity which singled him out in the eyes of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni; it was the fact that he had such a fine car and had clearly taken such good care of it.